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PRACTICAL TRAVELER

PRACTICAL TRAVELER; High Tech Helps Disabled Skiers

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

Published: November 14, 1999

WITH an unsteady gait, Sam Avalos trudged toward the ski lift in Breckenridge, Colo., his crutches leaving marks outside his footprints in the soft snow. Reaching the lift line, Mr. Avalos replaced his crutches with a set of outriggers, short poles with a miniature ski on the bottom, and lowered himself into a mono-ski, a chair made of molded fiberglass, Kevlar and carbon fiber perched on a single ski. After a short ride up the ski lift, he attacked the hill, carving graceful turns on the bumpy slope.

''I always hear my friends talk about going skiing, and it feels pretty good if you can go with them and do some of the same things that they're doing,'' said Mr. Avalos, 45 years old, who is partly paralyzed from the waist down as a result of a car accident when he was 19.

''In terms of the thrill and exhilaration of coming down the slope, there's nothing like it,'' he said in describing the attraction of skiing.

Mr. Avalos is among the many people with disabilities who, as a result of advances in technology, government pressure on resort owners and rising levels of affluence and confidence, are becoming more common on ski slopes from Stowe to Squaw Valley.

Statistics on the increase in the number of disabled skiers are difficult to find, but some advocates for the disabled estimate that there are more than 60,000 skiers with some form of physical or mental disability. Disabled Sports U.S.A., an organization in Rockville, Md., that encourages people with disabilities to participate in sports, says that 68 of its 84 chapters offer skiing programs, making it by far their most popular activity.

Skiing is one of the few sports that disabled people can enjoy alongside friends and family. ''They don't have to do it in an isolated environment like wheelchair basketball,'' said Kirk Bauer, the executive director of Disabled Sports.

Help From the Law

The growth in disabled skiing has been fueled in part by changes in the law. Since 1972, the United States Forest Service has required that ski resorts operating on Forest Service land -- and that includes nearly all of the major resorts in the West -- must be accessible to people with disabilities.

The Professional Ski Instructors of America, which trains the vast bulk of ski teachers, for several years has offered courses in teaching people with disabilities, including paralysis, multiple sclerosis, Down syndrome and visual impairment. A number of resorts including Breckenridge, Winter Park and Vail in Colorado; Taos, N.M., and Park City, Utah, have ski instruction for people with physical or mental disabilities.

''If they can walk in or wheel in to our office, we can get them on the hill,'' said Jennifer Hester, spokeswoman for the National Sports Center for the Disabled, which is based in Winter Park, Colo.

Perhaps the biggest reason for the growth in the number of disabled skiers, however, has been the improvements in equipment. Years ago, the best a disabled person could hope for was going down the hill in a sit ski, essentially a one-person toboggan that was heavy, cumbersome and could not handle anything beyond a relatively easy green run. Today, there are ski bras, metal braces that slip over the tips of skis, keeping them from splaying out or crossing. There are ski walkers, metal frames with skis on the bottom that work just as their name implies. There are bi-skis, a seat propped over two parabolic skis that is designed for skiers who don't have the strength or mobility to use a mono-ski.

The biggest breakthrough has been the mono-ski. The latest designs are exceedingly maneuverable and so light that if skiers tip over, they can right themselves without too much exertion. Hydraulic shock absorbers allow it to respond to the contours of the ski slope in much the same way other skiers' knees do. Newer models have moved the seat to the ''boot center'' of the ski, a point about six inches back from the ski's actual center, and the place where bindings are generally placed. This placement allows the skier to keep the entire ski in contact with the snow, giving better control on turns and allowing the skier to handle more difficult terrain, even moguls.

Newer mono-skis also contain a mechanism that, at the flick of a switch, raises the seat and allows the skier to get onto a ski lift. These mechanisms are still crude and need to be improved, manufacturers say, but the idea is to provide disabled skiers with the ability to take part completely by themselves.

The equipment is expensive; a mono-ski costs about $2,000 to $3,500. But advocates say that an increasing number of resorts are beginning to rent such equipment.

And people like Dan and Teresa Dodge are glad they are doing it.

Mr. Dodge, who is from Manhattan, Kan., was for years an active skier who looked forward to the family's yearly ski vacation. Eleven years ago he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which has affected his balance and forced him to walk with a cane. After contracting the disease, he tried skiing unaided, but found it too painful and too hard.

Three years ago a physical therapist suggested he try skiing again and convinced him to go to the Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center in Breckenridge, Colo., which teaches skiing and other activities to people with disabilities. He has mastered the bi-ski, and is trying to learn the mono-ski.

''You get to doing something and you think, 'Well, maybe I can do a little more, maybe I can do something that gives me a little more freedom to be able to load myself onto the ski lift or ski with my family before my kids are grown,' '' he said as he rode the lift at Breckenridge. ''Maybe I won't be able to do any of those. Who knows? But it beats sitting in the house while they're out here having all the fun.''